


Plant-Based Customs

by junkshopdisco



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Crowley plays himself, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Oblivious Aziraphale (Good Omens), POV Aziraphale (Good Omens), Snow, Snowball Fight, Soft Crowley (Good Omens), hinting at feelings via mistletoe, of course, over several centuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 00:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21918292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junkshopdisco/pseuds/junkshopdisco
Summary: A Christmas Fiction. In Prose. Being a Story of Christmas & Why An Angel Should Learn More About Mistletoe Than Whether Or Not To Put It On Pizza.Or: five times Crowley tried to get Aziraphale to kiss him under the mistletoe and one time he didn’t bother.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 31
Kudos: 199
Collections: Good Omens Holiday Swap 2019





	Plant-Based Customs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hazelandglasz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazelandglasz/gifts).



> Dedicated to @hazelandglasz for @goodomensholidayswap, with season's greetings x

* * *

**_The fourteenth before the Kalends of January, 45AD, Rome_ **

The Forum bustled in a way that was almost entirely pleasing around Aziraphale. Fascinating people tumbled down the steps and topics of conversation ranged from upcoming criminal trials to gladiatorial bouts and back again, via discussion about the nature of purpose and how a human might live a good life. All of humanity was there. One moment Aziraphale would find himself locking eyes with a member of the Senate he’d offered a blessing to, and the next, well, he’d be dodging the spilled blood of an animal which had given its life in the hope of ensuring prosperity for everyone visiting the temple.

He was, if he was honest, a little unsure how those two things were connected, how butchering a goat ritualistically led to financial security for people it had never really met. Surely selling the beast at market would be a more direct route to coins in the purse? But as he did so often, he reminded himself it wasn’t his place to judge humanity. It was his place to walk amongst them and report back on how they were doing generally. Broad strokes. In the main. No need to get bogged down in the entrails.

Wait, no.

_Details._ There was no need to get bogged down in the _details._

There was a lot of talk in Heaven, of course, about how far they should let the humans go with their sacrificing, what to do about their belief systems featuring various gods and goddesses etc.—but like most things, discussion happened slowly in Heaven. While the debate raged amongst the higher ups, while viability and feasibility probabilities were run and crisis plans written and discarded, down on Earth, the customs continued, with little mind paid to if an angel was required to spend a lot of time loitering in temples and had, say, just invested in a new pair of sandals.

Aziraphale stepped over a mound of snow, trying not to think too hard about what might lie beneath it. He wasn’t _complaining_ , of course. He would just appreciate a swift decision one way or the other. The Greek columns bore down on him as he climbed the steps and above, Palatine hill disappeared into the snow clouds. Really it was so much better than when it was a marsh. Much, much better. Almost churlish, really, to even _notice_ the smell.

He procured himself some wine and a little way off, a cry erupted from a group playing dice. Some were regular visitors to the Forum—landowners and decision makers and politicians—while others had a boisterous disposition suggesting the visit was a welcome reprieve from their usual duties. Earlier he’d seen them all swapping clothes in some kind of seasonal jape. He did hope no one would ask for his toga. Material possessions were naturally of little importance to him; it was just that this particular material possession was the only one he’d found so far that didn’t chaff.

Aziraphale loitered on the fringe of the group, smiling affably in case anyone looked in his direction, but things were getting rather animated, and he’d hardly spent all day dodging entrails only to get covered in wine when someone rolled a lucky number. A stray nut sailed past him, and after laughing to show he was _very_ human and didn’t mind such high spirits, he smiled and nodded his goodbyes and edged inside, hoping to find more sedate company.

And possibly some honey cake.

The honey cake was really very good.

On the wall of the basilica lounged a figure dressed in black, spine poised in the shape of a question mark.

“Crowley?” Crowley glanced over, raising an eyebrow as if he’d been waiting for Aziraphale all along. Aziraphale lifted his drink in greeting. “Io Saturnalia!”

Crowley’s expression changed to one that spoke of mild to moderate confusion. “Wait, is that today?”

Aziraphale gestured to the dice playing group, who’d escalated from idly chucking nuts at each other under the guise of betting to argumentatively sloshing wine over themselves, the furniture, and the dice. “What else did you think all this was about?”

“I mean it could be anything, couldn’t it? Like a party, don’t they, this lot.”

Aziraphale couldn’t argue with that. In fact, the last time they’d run into each other at the temple, Crowley had confessed that the Romans were proving spectacularly difficult to tempt. Aziraphale had allowed himself a tiny flutter of pride and reported back to Heaven that, despite what Michael had insinuated at their last 1-2-1, his devoting so much time to banqueting was really starting to pay off, only to find out later that what Crowley meant was that Romans were difficult to tempt because of their adoption of any and all vices as a matter of course.

Crowley adjusted his headband. It always reminded Aziraphale of a halo, but one he’d tried to hula-hoop with deeply unsuccessfully. “I hate this new calendar,” Crowley said. “Can’t get my head around it.” He gestured with a nod to the other side of the entrance, where a statue was apparently having its socks removed. “Who’s that supposed to be?” he said, tilting his head and squinting at it. “It’s reminding me of someone but I can’t quite—put a finger on it.”

“I expect it’s supposed to be Saturn,” Aziraphale said, “this being his temple and his festival and all.” He frowned. “I’m not sure why they’re undressing him, though.”

“Hmmm.” Crowley considered it for another moment before looking at Aziraphale through his dark glasses. “What you doing here, anyway?”

“Just… taking in the ambience,” Aziraphale said, with a wave. “You?”

Crowley’s eyes lazily followed a couple of chattering servants. “Came to have a quick word with Seneca.”

“Seneca?” Aziraphale hid his interest behind his wine. Was Crowley after the philosophers now too? “Did you find him?”

“Yeah, he’s out the back somewhere, putting snow in his wine.” Crowley screwed his face up. “He’s having a miserable old time of it. Goes against his principles all this, doesn’t it.”

Aziraphale murmured.

Seneca had been on his list for ages, but he hadn’t had much luck with him. The problem with philosophers was… they didn’t really want anything Aziraphale had to offer. Eternal life or healing from suffering were both of little interest; they’d decided suffering was just part of being alive. Crowley had different things to offer, of course. He had fame and fortune and—

“Death!”

“I beg your pardon?”

“That’s who it reminds me of. Dead ringer.” Crowley indicated the statue’s arm, which admittedly did terminate in a scythe. “Especially when it catches fire, the resemblance will be uncanny. Very Death, billowing smoke, isn’t it?”

“Catch fire? Why would it catch fire?” Aziraphale leant in, casting nervous glances at the crowd of nobles and philosophers, and hiss-whispered, “Is that why you’re really here? To burn down the temple?! On Saturnalia when everyone who’s anyone is here? Even for you, Crowley, that would be—”

“Have you been on the goat dung?” Crowley said, craning his head back to regard at Aziraphale from further away. “Why would I want to burn down a temple where people are sinning all over the place? Statue’s made of wood and filled with oil,” Crowley said, gesturing vague circles Aziraphale supposed were to indicate a blazing inferno, “just seems like a matter of time bef—” A roar from the crowd outside interrupted him, and Crowley groaned. “Oh, are they about to do a thing with the…bulls and the… knives and the… spillage?”

“Yes, it’s to promote fertility, I believe.”

Crowley wrinkled up his nose. “Bit distasteful if you ask me.”

Aziraphale couldn’t agree with him, of course.

He couldn’t agree, out loud, with a demon, even if he happened—on this one particular, singular, completely anomalous occasion—to concur.

“Humans do like their rituals,” he said. 

“Yeah but… why do so many of them have to be so messy?” Crowley tilted his head. “Prefer the plant-based customs, personally.”

“Plant based?”

Crowley pointed above, to where a cluster of white berries and green foliage swayed in the breeze.

“Right,” Aziraphale said. He wasn’t aware of any custom pertaining to the plant, nor the plant itself, if he was honest. For someone tasked with guarding a garden, his knowledge of horticulture was remarkably scant. Initially there were precisely two holes in his ignorance: one in the shape of an apple and another in that of fig leaves, and things hadn’t changed a great deal since, aside from the formation of several staunchly-held opinions on which were best for eating.

Crowley smiled at him the way he did sometimes, as if he was waiting for an answer to a question he hadn’t actually asked.

Another roar from the crowd went up, this one slightly deeper and more urgent, and Crowley looked away, following the noise with his gaze, a wrinkle of a frown just appearing between his eyebrows. “Might take off, actually,” he said.

“Oh, already?”

“Hard to get people to focus through the blood lust.”

“Well I shan’t keep you,” Aziraphale said. “I was thinking of leaving myself. Take a stroll, perhaps. A little solitude to prepare me for the oncoming festivities. And I need to break in these new shoes.” He lifted the hem of his toga to demonstrate and Crowley gave them an approving little nod. “I suppose if you wanted to, you could… tag along..?”

In extending the invite, Aziraphale was, of course, thinking only of how he might engineer the conversation back to Seneca, to extract from Crowley the necessary information on how far he’d got and if he thought Seneca amenable to whatever dastardly scheme Crowley had in mind for him. 

Crowley tilted his head to consider it, before smiling. “Don’t mind if I do,” he said, and from behind his back, produced a muslin bag. “Chestnut?”

“Oh, don’t mind if _I_ do,” Aziraphale said, and he took one, letting Crowley lead him away from the temple and the crowd now near rioting in the other direction.

* * *

**_Winter of 1016, Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire,_ ** **_England_ **

Aziraphale stalked through the forest, the sparse canopy providing little shelter from what was becoming a quite aggressive drizzle. Michael had been very specific: Cnut’s forces should be stopped and Edmund assisted; however the detail on precisely _how_ one assists a king against an invading Viking force had been lacking. Aziraphale pushed his helmet up in an attempt to see if he was going in the right direction. All the trees looked the same and his stomach wouldn’t stop grumbling. How was he supposed to assist anyone when he had a sweaty fringe and knee-length armour clunking about his person and he hadn’t eaten anything but gruel for two weeks?

It was intolerable. Beyond the pale. Completely untenable.

What was he supposed to do, miracle Edmund loyal subjects? He’d thought about it all the way back from the meeting, and the more he thought about it, the more it seemed his best bet was to hope that affairs at home would necessitate Cnut’s return. And that meant being stuck here, waiting for something which may never happen. Unless he engineered it, he supposed. Caused some… event that would require Cnut’s presence.

A twig snapped a little way off through the trees. He was about to ambushed, then. Typical, the way his week was going.

He craned his neck to get a better look at his potential assailant, only to see a familiar figure slinking through the sycamores. Low mist curled around his legs, although it was impossible to tell if he was parting it as he walked or if it was emanating from his person.

“Crowley?”

“Oh, hi,” Crowley said, raising one hand as if he was out for a stroll and had encountered a neighbour. “Was wondering where you’d got to.”

The last time they’d seen each other was a month or so ago, outside London. They’d both been stationed there to keep an eye on things—Aziraphale on Edmund and Crowley on Cnut. They’d argued about Heaven’s new policy idea—the divine right of kings—before becoming so weary at the lack of action, they invented a game which had few rules but all of them revolved around consuming formidable amounts of alcohol. Crowley had ranted about Hell and how much he hated being stuck with nothing interesting to do, before falling asleep on one of Aziraphale’s furs with his mouth open. He’d proved unexpectedly delightful company, up until then, and even when he started mumbling his way through a dream, Aziraphale found he didn’t mind it, nor have any desire to throw him out.

The beginnings of an idea started to uncurl in Aziraphale’s mind. _He_ couldn’t create some kind of ruckus in Cnut’s home territory, but Crowley could, couldn’t he?

He couldn’t ask.

He couldn’t ask a demon for help.

He _couldn’t_.

“Just got back from Heaven,” Aziraphale said, glumly.

“Oh?”

“New orders.”

Crowley winced, wrinkling up his entire face inside the window of his helmet. “There’s not going to be another siege, is there? So boring, sieges.”

“I think perhaps that’s rather the point of them.”

“Really? I thought it was to starve people into submission.”

Aziraphale lifted an eyebrow, although he wasn’t sure Crowley would be able to see it under his dratted helmet. What was the point of an outfit that so curtailed one’s ability to make expressions? It was about time, frankly, that all this metal went out of fashion again.

Crowley looked about the trees, halting to squint into the distance, from where the noises of the camp—the clank of weapons and anvils—rolled towards them. “Your fella, Ironside,” Crowley said, shifting inside his chainmail. “What’s his game plan, here?”

“I’m hardly likely to tell you, am I? You’re on the other side.”

Crowley wrinkled his nose again. “Not really, though. Besides, he’s already hiding in a forest. What’s he got to lose?”

Aziraphale sighed at the trees, causing a mist of his own. “We’re not hiding, we’re… regrouping.”

“If you say so.” Crowley sniffed, leant in, yellow eyes narrowing with suggestion. “Look,” he said, “why don’t we just sort this out between ourselves?”

“Not in a million years. I would _nev—”_ A drop of icy rainwater fell from one of the branches and trickled down Aziraphale’s neck. “What did you have in mind?” 

Crowley shifted, causing a series of musical clinks in his chainmail. “We all know how this is going to end,” he said. “Edmund can’t win. Cnut could but… he’s overstretched, truth be told. It’ll take him a couple of months. Everyone’s tired, let’s just… find an agreement everyone’s happy with.”

“But we’re enemies, Crowley.”

“I mean technically, but why do you always bring that—” Crowley rolled his eyes, frowned, gaze returning to the trees above and lingering there for a moment. “Oh, look at that.” He pointed up towards the scant branches, where the last few leaves were helplessly clinging on against the infernal drizzle and plummeting temperature. “That’s funny, isn’t it?” He grinned at Aziraphale, a frown sliding in to join it when Aziraphale didn’t immediately agree. “You must have heard the story.”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Really? It’s all over our camp.” Crowley waved in an abstract sort of fashion. “Anyway, fella named Baldr. Starts dreaming of his own death. So does his mother. She’s not best pleased, obviously, decides to make every object on Earth vow not to harm him.”

“That seems a little excessive.”

“Not excessive enough, as it turns out,” Crowley said. “She secured the vow of everything on Earth. Everything but one thing.” He pointed up at the branches, and Aziraphale followed his hand to where green sprigs twined about each other to make a ball amongst the barren tree branches. “ _Viscum album_.”

“What happened?” 

“Some mix up,” Crowley said, with a shrug. “Brother accidentally stabbed him with a spear made of the stuff, sent him straight _downstairs_.”

Aziraphale winced.

“That’s not all,” Crowley said, leaning in closer, “Now, they’re saying if you encounter a foe under a bunch, you should lay down your weapons for a day to avoid… angering the… spirits or whatnot.”

Aziraphale lifted his eyebrow. “How convenient,” he said. “So I expect you to expect me to lay down my weapon, just because we happen to be standing under… some kind of foliage you believe has mystical powers?”

“Just telling you what I’ve heard.” Crowley cocked his head. “Come on. What’s the worst that can happen if we… go off for a bit? You’ve been working as hard as I have, with the siege and everything. No one would begrudge you a little rest and recuperation.”

Aziraphale stared him down. “I’m not here to have fun.”

“Weather’s getting worse.”

“I am warmed by Heaven’s eternal light.”

“Come on, let’s just… nip into town for a bit. Get some food, maybe.”

“More gruel? No thank you.”

“Gruel?” Crowley leant back in disgust. “What d’you take me for. I know a place. Nice little spread they do, local cheese, the lot. Know the landlord. He owes me one from a—thing.”

Aziraphale let out a breath of protest, even as his stomach grumbled at the thought of food with actual substance. Food that wasn’t _grey_. Food that tasted of… food.

“You need to keep your strength up,” Crowley said, “if this thing’s going to run all winter.”

Aziraphale knew he shouldn’t listen, that he should go back to camp. Do what he could to bolster Edmund’s confidence. Bed in for the winter. It wouldn’t be _that_ bad. Some of the others had been talking about foraging for fir to make wreaths from, and once they were up he was sure the camp would look much less bleak. There’d still be the lack of food, and the impending snow fall, and the cold, of course, but—

Actually he supposed it wouldn’t do any harm to hear Crowley out, especially if there was a chance not doing so would anger some kind of plant spirits.

“Fine,” Aziraphale said, “but I’m not promising anything.”

The town, it turned out, was more of a cluster of inns, all of which were packed with low beams and patrons full of stories about how much they hated Edmund. Aziraphale strategically positioned himself in the corner, while Crowley procured them a platter of bread, cheese, and some kind of festive ham. He set it down on the rickety table alongside two tankards and sat opposite, under a display of dried hops and berries which brought out the fire in his hair.

“I do declare I’m quite famished,” Aziraphale said, helping himself to a chunk of bread.

Crowley wrapped his hand around the fat belly of his drink. “I bet. Hungry work, hiding in a forest.” One corner of his mouth hitched at Aziraphale’s glare. “Sorry— _regrouping_.” Crowley took a swig of his drink. “Waste of time, if you ask me.” 

Aziraphale popped the bread into his mouth and took another piece, adding some ham which had been studded through with herbs and spices. “What would you have Edm—” A patron with a bulbous nose turned his head, sneer at the ready, and Aziraphale leant closer across the table, lowering his voice. “—him do? Stay in his castle and wait to be murdered?”

“ ‘Course not,” Crowley said. “But… you’ve got to admit, sooner or later, they’re both just going to have to do what they were always obviously going to have to do.”

“And what, pray tell, is that?” Aziraphale said, folding the bread into his mouth and trying not to make some kind of unseemly noise at how good the ham tasted.

“Talk. Compromise.”

“Compromise? You don’t compromise with an invading army, Crowley.”

“Why not?” Crowley said. “And _invading_ is such a loaded term.”

“If the suit of armour fits.”

Crowley waved his words away. “People like Cnut. He’s a nice enough person, when you get to know him.”

“Doesn’t he have two wives?”

“For all we know, they’re happy enough with the arrangement,” Crowley mumbled. “Some people like unconventional relationships.”

Aziraphale tutted. He really did not want to talk about relationships, unconventional or otherwise, with Crowley. “A king, who I might add has been afforded the rule by the divine will of God—”

“Are they still making you push that?”

“—is never going to just… give up his kingdom.”

Crowley leant in. “Do you know that? Do you know that for certain? Have you asked him? Very tiring, being in charge. Maybe he fancies a break.”

“He _was_ injured a while back,” Aziraphale mused. “Healed him myself, but—”

“There you go, then. Save a lot of bloodshed, wouldn’t it, if we could just… come to some arrangement instead of letting this drag on through the winter.” He lifted his gaze to Aziraphale’s, tilting his head. “Aren’t you supposed to be in favour of that? Saving people from suffering?”

Aziraphale paused. “I did have an idea,” Aziraphale said.

“Go on.”

“What if Cnut just… sort of… left?”

“Left?”

“Went home. Maybe one of his wives could send him some—” Aziraphale cleared his throat. “—good news.”

Crowley lowered his tankard to the table, mouth slightly open. “What?”

Aziraphale shifted on his seat. “You know. _Good_ news.”

“You want me to get one of his wives pregnant so he abandons his plans and goes home to knit booties?”

“It’s an idea, isn’t it?”

“Ready the long ships,” Crowley muttered. “I don’t know what you know about military planning, angel, but people don’t generally call off an invasion just because they’re expecting.”

Aziraphale sighed.

“Look,” Crowley said. “Only option I can see is Edmund concedes. Cnut’ll give him a nice house in the country, maybe, if I have a word. Wouldn’t you rather just get this over with?”

Aziraphale swallowed and stared down at the ham. “What I would rather is a little peace and quiet while we eat.”

When they returned to it, the forest was both dark and dank, which was not, by any stretch of the imagination, an improvement. They split up on the outskirts after a brief argument about which way was actually East, the other’s footsteps disappearing into the mist long before they were in sight of their respective parties.

Aziraphale tramped through bracken crunchy with frost, annoyance rising every time he caught a part of his outfit on a twig or a bramble. The thought of spending months here, months and months, and over the festive season and everything.

Crowley wasn’t _right_.

Of course he wasn’t.

Yes, it would be easier to come to some arrangement and go home, but Heaven wouldn’t get anywhere if people did what was easy and comfortable rather than—

“Psst.”

Aziraphale stopped dead. 

“Psssssssst.”

Aziraphale looked towards the trees. Mist had swirled in but… no, no one was there.

“Pssssssssssssssst.”

Aziraphale leant in. It very much sounded like—

“Oi, Aziraphale!”

Aziraphale span around.

Crowley was standing behind a bush, parting the branches to peek through them, his eyes wide.

Aziraphale tutted, shooting a panicked glance at the camp, just visible through the trees. “What in God’s name are you doing here? East, you said, your party was in the East.”

“It was,” Crowley said. “I caught up with them and—look, while we were gone there was… a _tiny_ development.”

Aziraphale looked between his yellow eyes. “What sort of development?”

“Tiny thing,” Crowley said. “Minuscule, really. Absolutely nothing to get upset about.”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale hissed.

Crowley grimaced. “It’s just that they’ve decided to divide the place up. Your lot will take the south and my lot will take the north.”

“Of the forest?”

“Of the country.”

“What?!”

Crowley couldn’t possibly be saying what he appeared to be. That was preposterous. Ridiculous. No one in their right mind would think—

“Makes sense, if you think about it. Big place, isn’t it. Share the workload, like I said.” Crowley shifted from foot to foot before darting around the bush to stand directly in front of him, presumably having guessed Aziraphale wasn’t convinced. “I mean if you think about it, if Edmund had been up to the job of managing the whole country in the first place, if he’d actually had all his ducks in a whatnot, there wouldn’t have been an opportunity for Cnut to invade in the first place.”

Aziraphale sighed, exasperated breath forming clouds on the crisp air. “But who’s in charge, then?”

“Well, neither of them. Or—both of them, I suppose.”

“So there are _two_ kings?”

“Well… yes.”

Aziraphale gaped.

“What’s that face for?” Crowley said. “I thought you’d be pleased. No more hiding in the forest, waiting to see if bits of you freeze off.”

“Pleased?! How am I supposed to explain this to Heaven? _Oh hello, Michael._ _Yes, two kings. Not quite sure how. I appreciate that the instruction was to establish Edmund’s divine right to rule, I do very much appreciate that, but another king seems to have slipped in under the wire.”_

“It was always going to be a tough sell, this divine right malarkey. You shouldn’t blame yourself.”

“I don’t. I blame you. You’re the one who persuaded me to go gadding about on some… superstition about a plant, and now I have to explain to Heaven how I ended up accidentally arranging some sort of buy one get one free with the entire monarchy.”

Crowley shifted his weight. “Maybe it won’t be that bad. Maybe they’ll realise this divine right thing is a non-starter. Maybe Heaven’ll, I don’t know, warm to Cnut.”

“ _Warm_ to him? He persecutes Christians, Crowley.” Aziraphale looked up at the whited-out sky. He’d have to report back before they heard from someone else. He twisted his hands together at the thought. “Michael’s been on my case for almost a century. I do hope this won’t be the last straw.”

“You could say it was your idea.”

Aziraphale let his gaze fall back down to Crowley. “My idea?”

“Claim it was a way to show the populace the virtues of the blessed? That a righteous person doesn’t cling to power, collaborates to avoid bloodshed, I don’t know, just make it sound Heaven-y.” Crowley assessed Aziraphale’s expression carefully. “Tell them you forced my hand. Stopped the onslaught.”

What Crowley was suggesting—lying to Heaven—was unspeakable. He should just tell Heaven the truth: he tried to implement the new policy but he failed and he’s sorry. Accept whatever punishment they thought fitting.

“I’m sure you can persuade them,” Crowley said, and his voice was softer than usual. Conciliatory. Comradely. Compassionate, even.

“But what about you?” Aziraphale said. “Say I tell Heaven this was my idea, how will Hell take the news you allowed a rampaging mob of Vikings to negotiate a reasonable compromise?”

“Badly,” Crowley said. “But then they take everything badly, so.” He shrugged. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

“But if neither of us succeeded—”

“It means neither of us properly failed, either.”

They looked at each other, and some new understanding curled through the air between them.

Crowley held out his hand.

Aziraphale took it.

The plant with the white berries looked down on them, and, very quietly, snow began to fall.

* * *

**_December 1539, Hampton Court, England_ **

The hall where Aziraphale found himself had undergone quite the transformation. In fact, it was almost miraculous: the tapestries that decked the walls were partially hidden behind bunches and bunches of greenery and the tables were so jam-packed with foliage, the room more resembled a forest than some forests Aziraphale had been in. Boughs of mistletoe, holly, and rosemary hung above the doors, ivy tumbling down towards the guests’ heads as they arrived. Aziraphale had been assured there’d be quite a feast of minced pyes and cockenthrice, too. He wouldn’t be eating it for the pleasure of it, of course. It was all very symbolic. The thirteen ingredients in the pie represented Jesus and the apostles, while the Christmas pie was shaped like a coffin to remind everyone about… well actually, he wasn’t sure. He was even less sure what stitching the back end of a turkey to a pig’s torso was supposed to be about. Last year, there had been a chicken mounted on the pig, wearing both a helmet and a shield as if it were about to joust with the onlookers. Really, it was rather a disquieting sight when one wasn’t expecting to come across it at the buffet table.

He lingered by the wall to see who was arriving, skimming the flushed faces of ladies fresh in from the cold and smartly-attired lords who’d made the trip from all over the country. He was absolutely, 100% not looking for anyone in particular. The very idea. Crowley had crossed his mind once or twice in the preceding weeks, but that was perfectly natural, wasn’t it, when one was engaged in an ongoing battle of wills about the souls of the people with whom you were both surrounded. If he came, that would be fine. If he didn’t, well, Aziraphale would enjoy the plays and the pyes alone.

One of the passing lords stopped, offering Aziraphale a little nod before holding out a wooden bowl. “Wassail,” he said.

“Oh, thank you,” Aziraphale said, staring down into the murky liquid. Brown apple slices bobbed in what he thought was perhaps cider, and the remains of a crust of bed floated merrily on the top. He’d rather hoped he could get away with not partaking of this particular offering, but now he’d been handed it, there didn’t seem anything else for it. “Er—bottoms up,” he said, lifting the bowl. “I mean… wassail!”

The lord nodded again, before catching the arm of a lady, clinging tightly to her as they joined the throng around the king.

Aziraphale looked for somewhere to stash the bowl. Somewhere out of the way where no one would notice. Behind a tapestry? Or maybe he could slip into the kitchens with it and swap it for something more—

“Fancy seeing you here.”

Aziraphale would know that voice anywhere. Attempting not to smile too much, he turned his head, watching as Crowley made a slow loop around him.

“You’re the Lord of Misrule, I expect?” Aziraphale said, eyeing his outfit. His customary damask coat looked even more out of place than usual. Aziraphale had told him—several times—what a serious breach of etiquette it was for him to wear it, but Crowley obviously didn’t care, and—maddeningly—no one else seemed to, either. 

“Me? Master of merry disports, sounds more like your wheelhouse than mine.” Crowley glanced down at his hose. “No bells, see? Don’t suit me. Too jangly. Gets in the way of me being stealthy.”

“So what are you doing here? I thought you were in Italy.”

Crowley shrugged. “Fancied a change of scenery.” He surveyed the scene before plucking a sprig of greenery from the lowest end of the bough and twirling it between his fingers. “Thought I’d pop along, see how… things are going.”

Aziraphale didn’t know for certain, but he suspected that a great deal of what he’d euphemistically started to refer to as the _religious upheaval_ of recent years was down to Crowley. Who else would’ve planted the idea that Henry could weasel his way out of marriage on a technicality? Kings didn’t read the bible. Of course they didn’t. No one did, except nuns and monks and then only because they didn’t actually have anything else to do. Aziraphale had only read it himself to see what the humans had decided should be in it and a great deal of it had left him, frankly, baffled, although some of the penmanship in the new one was really very well done. That Crowley had not only read the thing but understood it enough to manipulate people with it was, admittedly, surprising, but Aziraphale couldn’t see another explanation for quite what a pickle everything had become.

“ _Things_ that apparently require you to be stealthy?” Aziraphale said. “Looking for a repeat of that Elizabeth Blount business, are you? Quite the Twelfth Night you gave us all last time, queen accidentally inviting her husband’s mistress to their bedchamber.”

“I just said masks would be fun,” Crowley said, spreading his hands. “It’s hardly my fault he’s secretly knocking off half the ladies in waiting.”

Aziraphale raised an eyebrow. “Is it not?”

“Ok, it’s a little bit my fault. But I needed to make up for lost time—it’s been ages since there was a king who was this much fun to mess with. I’ve got quotas.”

“So are you responsible for—” Aziraphale looked around, lowering his voice. “— _all_ the wives?”

“Do I look like some kind of dating service?” Crowley fleetingly looked genuinely offended before tucking the stem of greenery behind his ear. “You met the new one yet?”

“The new Anne, you mean, or..?”

Crowley’s eyes widened. “What? Has someone else taken his eye _already?_ ”

“Well I’m not one for gossip,” Aziraphale said, leaning closer, “but I did overhear someone talking about another Catherine.”

“Huh. You’d think he’d want to mix it up a little, name-wise, if only for the sake of clarity.” Crowley stroked his chin in consideration. “Or just pick one. Only go for Catherines or Annes from here on out, so people don’t have to keep up.”

“It _is_ awfully taxing when you’re speaking to him, trying to remember who’s in and who’s dead.”

Crowley concurred with a murmur, looked off across the hall to where Henry was holding court amongst a bunch of lords and ladies, sycophantic laughter pealing off them. “He’s a funny one, isn’t he.”

“You mean his compositions? I don’t think it’s intentional.” Crowley frowned. “Oh,” Aziraphale said. “You meant more the burning and dismembering of heretics, the splitting from Rome, all that.”

“I did rather. Although his poetry _is_ terrible.”

“Dreadful. Absolutely dreadful.”

“All that dissolution business too,” Crowley said, “can’t imagine your side were best pleased with that.”

“No, not really. Monks are terribly useful, from a purely strategic perspective.” 

Crowley offered him a glance of mild to moderate confusion. “Are they?”

“They make a lot of ale, for one thing,” Aziraphale said. “People like that. Makes them more amenable to the message, you know? We’re stuck with this, now. Wassail,” he offered, a little feebly and passed Crowley the wooden bowl. “It’s gone cold, I’m afraid.”

Crowley waved his hand over it, causing a discrete tide of bubbles and steam. He took a sip, wincing at either the taste or the brush of soggy bread against his lip, it was hard to tell. He handed it back with the slightest brush of fingers, before dropping something into it with a tiny splash. “Maybe that’ll perk it up.”

Aziraphale stared into the bowl. “What on—”

What Crowley had deposited in the bowl was round. Bobbing. Undoubtedly demonic.

Aziraphale peered at it.

On closer inspection it appeared to be… a whole nutmeg. A slightly shiny whole nutmeg. Aziraphale looked from it to Crowley and back again.

“Little token,” Crowley said.

And he waited, like it was a question.

Aziraphale lifted the bowl to his lips and took a sip. “Oh, that’s rather pleasant, now.”

“Good,” Crowley said, and either his smile or the spices warmed Aziraphale right down to his toes.

* * *

**_December 19th, 1843, Soho, London_ **

The bookshop frontage was piled with snow. Or at least it was until Crowley arrived, dissolving a path to the door with a glance which said the snow had displeased him by falling somewhere it should’ve known he planned to tread.

Aziraphale darted behind the closest shelf, so Crowley wouldn’t know he’d watched him walk, laden with packages, all the way down the street, had seen him stop in front of several shop windows to gaze curiously at the displays, and purchase something from a lad on the corner with a wink.

“Hello,” Aziraphale called, as the bell jangled. “I’m back here, stock-taking.”

Crowley sauntered through the stacks, setting the packages down before taking off his hat and knocking the snow which had settled on the brim onto the floor. He hung it up next to Aziraphale’s. “It’s freezing out there,” he said, and unwound his long, dark red scarf before slipping out of his coat, revealing quite the pair of gas pipes and a pinched in waistcoat.

“Quite,” Aziraphale said, and unnecessarily dusted the shelf closest to him, just for something to do which wasn’t thinking about it.

Since he’d purchased the bookshop, they’d seen rather a lot of each other. That came, Aziraphale supposed, with having a fixed location, a base, somewhere he could reliably be expected to be. It was useful to have somewhere away from all the humans they could discuss things, plan how to keep their bosses happy, and the fact that it allowed Aziraphale to engage Crowley in illuminating conversations about advancements in human engineering and ingenuity—all of which Crowley kept abreast of—was a rather unexpected bonus.

Useful. That’s what it was. Of use. No more, no less. It was a completely professional arrangement.

“Brought you something,” Crowley said. He tossed a book onto the desk, where it span on the shiny wood before coming to a halt with the title upside down. “Everyone’s talking about it.”

_A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas._

“Oh!” Aziraphale reached up onto the windowsill. “Snap,” Aziraphale said. “I’d quite forgotten but—” He held the book, which was wrapped in brown paper and finished with a tartan bow, out. “For you. It’s signed, of course, by Mr Dickens. I ran into him at the club and he was convinced he owed me a favour, even though we’d never actually met before.”

Crowley took the book, one side of his mouth hitching into what Aziraphale thought would probably be a lovely crooked smile, if he allowed it to form. “You got me something? Really?”

It wasn’t a gift.

Aziraphale couldn’t give a demon a _gift_.

It was a lesson Crowley could learn from, in book form. With a bow on.

“I hear it has a great moral component,” Aziraphale said. “Very afternoonified.”

Crowley wrinkled his nose. “Thanks. Maybe I can use it as a doorstop. Safety first, you know how it is.”

He crossed the shop to tuck it away in his pocket, and Aziraphale took a moment to consider him, at home amongst the shelves with the snow beyond the window falling softly behind him. Familiarity was supposed to breed contempt, but he found increasingly it was doing rather the opposite thing.

Sensing him looking, Crowley glanced up. 

“Er—what are those?” Aziraphale said, regarding the boxes Crowley had deposited next to the desk.

“Decorations.” Crowley shrugged. “Bit of festive what have you.”

“What for?”

“The customers.”

“The what?”

Crowley sighed. “All the other shops have got them. You need to blend in. Christmas is very in this year. You must’ve noticed.”

Aziraphale bristled. “I’m stock-taking. I don’t have time to mess about with decorations.”

“Fine, I’ll do it,” Crowley said, picking up one of the packages. “You won’t even know I’m here.”

Two hours later, Aziraphale barely recognised the place. The windows were decked with swags of greenery—far more than Crowley possibly could’ve carried in his armful of packages—a tree, the origins of which remained unspecified despite Aziraphale’s pressing, stood in the centre of the floor, and bunches of white berries hung from the balcony and the bell.

“Almost done,” Crowley said, and leant across the desk Aziraphale was sitting at poring over his sales ledger, to affix the final bunch above.

“Er—”

In his head Aziraphale framed a question about precisely why Crowley was hanging a symbol of enemies meeting and laying down weapons there particularly, but his brain found itself eye to buttons with Crowley’s waistcoat. The question stalled in his mouth.

“There,” Crowley said. “What d’you reckon?”

Aziraphale adjusted his position on his seat, tugging his own waistcoat down, as if that would in some way compensate for staring at where Crowley’s had ridden up to reveal an enticing sliver of shirt. “Yes, it’s very festive, I daresay.”

Crowley leant on the desk, holding a handful of candles out. “Do your thing,” he said.

“What thing?”

“With the—” Crowley made a hand gesture that seemed a little unseemly and Aziraphale frowned. “—light. Light them, Aziraphale.”

“I can’t just go around miricling candlelight.”

“Why not? Very Heavenly, isn’t it? Forcing away the darkness or whatever.”

“I really don’t think—”

“Light them,” Crowley said, leaning in with a slight glower, “or I’ll get us a plum pudding.”

“What sort of threat is that?”

“Well it’s a health and safety nightmare, isn’t it, plum pudding?” Crowley said. “Ultimate after dinner sport—who wants to play a game of whose turn is it to choke to death on a sixpence? Ask me that’s why people are having such big families these days—they’re just trying to lower their chances of doing themselves a mischief on the coin someone needlessly baked into the dessert.”

“Crowley, I really don’t think that’s—”

Crowley leant in, face fixed to say he would brook no disagreement, wiggling the candles in Aziraphale’s personal space.

“Very well,” Aziraphale said, and clicked his fingers over them. “But only because it’s Christmas.”

Crowley grinned at him.

There was something about having flames dancing just under his chin which, rather worryingly, suited him.

Aziraphale grabbed his ledger and cleared his throat to indicate he was performing very serious bookshop business and would Crowley please stop distracting him.

Never one not to take a hint, Crowley sauntered towards the window, and arranged the candles amongst the foliage, giving the entire shop a warm glow, before stationing the remainder on the Christmas tree. It really did all smell rather lovely. Like a forest. Only less chilly.

“Thought you’d be more into all this,” Crowley said.

“Why?”

“Celebrating the birth of the good Lord’s offspring, seems right up your lot’s street.”

Aziraphale hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his waistcoat. In truth, there’d been much debate in Heaven about the rising popularity of Christmas, the way the humans had slowly walked away from bacchanalia and towards something more fitting for the front of a greeting card. Aziraphale had wondered if, in fact, the two were connected, that the new image of Christmas wasn’t so much a sign of shifting morality as a generalised concern for elderly relatives. No-one wanted their aunt to find a scene from Saturnalia staring up at her from the mat during a cold, cruel December where her heart was probably already under strain. A drawing depicting well-mannered children toasting to charity and good health was just… so much more post-able, wasn’t it?

At least that’s what Aziraphale had posited during one of the several meetings there had been on the subject. He’d even pointed out a nugget that Crowley had divulged, that the person commissioning the cards also stood to gain from the spike in usage of the Penny Post, so perhaps they shouldn’t get carried away assuming the humans were on the turn towards undeniable, whole-hearted goodness when there was such a lot of poverty about. He’d been assured by both Michael and Gabriel that was entirely a coincidence, that he shouldn’t doubt the efficacy of Heaven’s methods or second-guess their results, but that data would be collected and reports compiled to give a general overview on whether Christmas was a sign humanity was veering towards the light and they’d all appreciate him sitting tight about it.

So yes. Much debate.

No real conclusions.

“Bit of a mishmash these days, isn’t it,” Aziraphale said. “Religion and old traditions—some of which are rooted in evil, I might add—all cobbled together.”

“S’why I like it,” Crowley said.

He leant against the window, bathed in candlelight and snowfall, gaze drifting to the place above the desk where the berries he’d placed hung. There was a question in his frame, but he stood there for a moment, before deciding not to let it out of his mouth.

Aziraphale offered him one of his own: “Fancy nipping out for a mulled wine to say thank you?”

* * *

**_December 1962, Windsor, London_ **

“See, I told you,” Crowley said, pointing to the Thames. “It’s frozen. Completely frozen. Hard as a… frozen rock.”

Aziraphale couldn’t argue with that. Where there were usually boats carrying wares in and out of the city and a sludgy, malodorous tide, there was nothing but an expanse of cold and grey. The sky hung with the promise of yet more snow and the fog that drifted over the morning clung to the trees, coating them in sprinkles and glitter. The entire city seemed drowned in stillness. “Good Lord,” Aziraphale said.

“What d’you reckon? Is it some kind of punishment from on high?”

“I haven’t been informed about anything of that nature,” Aziraphale said.

“And you would be? Definitely?”

“Well yes,” Aziraphale said. “There’d be a schedule of works and an official notice, so people could plan around it. And these things don’t just manifest, you know. There’s a lot of paperwork.”

Crowley hummed, considering the sky.

“And it’s not one of yours?” Aziraphale asked, although he was mostly just being polite. This wasn’t really Crowley’s style at all.

“No. Must be just weather, then,” Crowley said, blowing on his hands. “Like the old days.”

Aziraphale swerved to avoid becoming entangled with a lad on a bicycle, who skidded towards him at speed, sliding off where the bank of the river used to be and out onto the frigid water in pursuit of what appeared to be a rock wrapped in tape. His friends cackled from their own bikes, jeering him on towards a makeshift goal which had been hastily constructed from a couple of coats. “Not quite,” he said. “I don’t remember much of that sort of thing back in—wait, when was the last time this happened? Can you remember?”

“1739,” Crowley said. “We played skittles on the ice right over there. Had some rum to warm up. Rather a lot of rum to warm up, as I recall, and then you accidentally went into that tent where—”

With a jolt, Aziraphale remembered. There had been quite a lot of flesh on show, given the sub-zero temperatures. “You promised never to speak of that again.”

Crowley tucked his hands into his pockets, burrowing his chin into his long red scarf, almost but not quite hiding his smirk. “Something very pleasing about snow, isn’t there?”

“Oh, you think?” Aziraphale said, clinging to the change of subject.

“Don’t you?”

Aziraphale had never really thought about it. That winter in particular, before he’d stumbled into a tent of ill repute, they’d strolled the frozen river, marvelling at how eager humans were to make the best of things, how any change in their circumstances—no matter how objectively detrimental they might be to their comfort and continuing existence—was ripe for celebration. They wheeled out wheels that purported to tell their fortune, ladled grog into each other’s tankards, and bought and sold trinkets to mark the occasion, chattering to strangers and singing songs from long ago passed down without anyone knowing quite how. The trinkets and the style of dress, the drinks that were favoured, might change, but the spirit remained the same.

He watched as a gang of schoolchildren, freed from the shackles of education on account of the weather, darted from the snowy hedgerow to the river, hurling handfuls of snow at each other and laughing at each hit and miss, clumps of the stuff clinging onto their coats and their hats about their reddened ears.

It looked terribly fun.

Aziraphale reached out to touch the snow which had gathered on a low wall. He’d been around snow for centuries, but he’d never really thought of it as fun before, just something to be stepped over and wrapped up against, kept at bay the best one could with additional layers and cocoa. He swept up a handful and patted it into a ball shape, the way the children were, enjoying the seep of the cold into his fingers and the possibility it held.

“Oh, Crowley?” Aziraphale said, and as Crowley turned at the sound of his name, Aziraphale pulled back his mittened hand.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

Aziraphale wavered.

Crowley was his friend. His confidante. His accomplice, in a way. But he was still a demon, and angering a demon was never a wise thing to do.

And then Crowley smiled, as if he wanted Aziraphale to dare, so Aziraphale launched the ball at his face.

It landed on his shoulder, exploding into a mini firework of snow and ice, and Aziraphale felt uncommonly pleased with himself for having done something so frivolous, so buoyant, so human.

Crowley ducked down to scoop up a handful of snow before it had even finished falling from his jacket, surprised Aziraphale by launching it from where he was crouching.

There wasn’t much force behind it, and Aziraphale stepped back, laughing as he shielded himself from it and the ball disintegrated on his forearms. He held up his hands in surrender and Crowley stood, brushing the snow from his lapel. He eyed Aziraphale as if expecting a trap, but when a moment passed and Aziraphale didn’t launch another attack, he seemed to realise he was safe.

“Come on,” Crowley said. “I’ll buy you a hot chocolate to warm up.”

“Oh well if you insist,” Aziraphale said.

They sipped hot chocolate from plastic cups on the banks of the frozen river and watched the humans skid and skitter, swapping stories about the Frost Fairs before ambling back to the car, elbows bumping into each other.

“Gentleman over there said it’s supposed to get worse before it gets better. Big freeze,” Aziraphale said. “I do hope everyone will be alright.”

He looked at each of the children on the river in turn, willing their fingers and toes to warm, and for any shopkeeper in the area with a kindly disposition to remember all that soup about to go out of date that mysteriously turned up from the wholesaler and could be sold for bargain prices.

“ _Worse_ ,” Crowley said. “Humans, they enjoy the snow and yet they treat it like a disaster every time it falls.”

“Only here,” Aziraphale said. “In other regions I think they’re far more used to it.”

Crowley clicked his fingers to open the car doors, sliding into the driver’s seat and arranging his long coat around his knees. He waited for Aziraphale to settle himself before asking, “Bookshop?”

“Yes please, if it wouldn’t be out of your way.”

They both knew that it was, but Crowley shook his head, anyway.

“I’m glad you brought me to see it,” Aziraphale said. “The river. To make sure it’s not some kind of divine retribution, I mean. Always worth checking, isn’t it?”

That was it, of course.

The only reason he’d come.

The snowball was, admittedly, a little tricky to classify as purely work related but perhaps he could explain it, if anyone asked, as keeping his enemy guessing.

He fixed his gaze ahead as Crowley turned to look at him.

“My pleasure,” Crowley said.

Sometimes Crowley’s gaze was cool as the ice currently covering the pavement, and other times, it made Aziraphale feel as if he was being subjected to a very localised heatwave. This was the latter kind. Would be quite embarrassing, probably, if he steamed up the windows because of it, and he was about to say something about getting a move on rather than just sitting here, when Crowley said:

“Oh look.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Aziraphale checked where Crowley’s gaze had gone to: a small cluster of greenery hung from the windshield. 

“Mistletoe,” Crowley said.

“How did that get there?” Aziraphale said. He hadn’t noticed it when he got in, but perhaps he’d been distracted by the thought of Crowley’s driving on the icy roads. “Is it growing? Do you have some kind of infestation?”

Crowley looked at him in question, before dropping his gaze. “Must do,” he said, and started the engine.

Outside the bookshop, the lights strung across the road twinkled invitingly, welcoming the oncoming dusk. The radio burbled away, DJ announcing another couple of Christmas numbers to warm everyone up, indicating with laid on joviality that anyone snowed in should engage in a quick boogie around the kitchen to get their blood flowing. The lyrics rolled over Aziraphale’s thoughts: _mistletoe hung where you can see, every couple tries to stop…._

“Here we are, then,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale looked towards the bookshop, with its decorated windows. Every year they dressed the place the same way Crowley had the first time he’d suggested it, swags of greenery and flickering candles like a moment out of time. It was nice of Crowley to help, although Crowley protested that enticing shoppers to over-extend themselves was just part of a broader scheme he was working on to do with escalating debt and stoking malcontent through retail outlets.

“Yes, here we are.”

After an annoying jingle, the track on the radio changed. _I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus, underneath the mistletoe last night._ For an ancient custom regarding one’s bitterest enemies, it certainly got a lot of airtime, this mistletoe business.

“So I’ll… see you… soon?” Crowley said.

“I expect,” Aziraphale said. “I’d invite you in, but I’m expected on the other side of town shortly for a quick miracle.”

“Some other time, then.”

Cold air gushed in as he opened the car door, and as he walked towards the shop and turned to wave, Aziraphale noticed snow from Crowley’s snowball still clinging to his coat. He hoped it wouldn’t melt, that it would stay a little longer on his sleeve, a little memento, like the ones humans collected of their more unusual, better days.

Aziraphale watched Crowley drive off, the lights glinting off the top of his car, and went inside. He walked amongst the decorations, flicking a bauble to make it dance, running his hands through the fir and the cedar on the garlands. He did nip across town and then back again, made a cocoa and took down _A Christmas Carol_ to read, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the berries dangling from windscreen, the look on Crowley’s face, and the songs softly playing on the radio.

* * *

**_December 23rd 2019, Soho, London_ **

Aziraphale closed _The Origins of Christmas Traditions_ and unhooked his glasses from his ears. He neatly folded the arms and placed his glasses, just so, on the desk, adjusting their position until they were quite straight.

As a purveyor of historical volumes and collector of predictions, he had established rules for deciding what was, broadly speaking, true, and what was, broadly speaking, not. Three references was his benchmark for confirmation that something was, as much as a thing ever could be determined by reading second-hand accounts, factually accurate. Three completely independent, unrelated, reliable sources to validate a piece of information. It was an ergonomic system. Sensible. Logical. Methodical.

He’d found that this was especially important when it came to the fripperous things. Things like, say, for example, whether mistletoe was more related to kissing, as was suggested by popular music, TV, and film that Aziraphale had noted, with interest, over the last few decades, than laying down arms with your sworn enemies, as suggested by Crowley a very long time ago.

Three references to validate.

He’d found twenty-seven, spanning a millennium and change, and he was only halfway down the pile of books he’d pulled from the shelves for the purpose.

So that was that, then.

Mistletoe was culturally linked to kissing.

People hung it when they wanted kissing to occur.

And Crowley, as both an expert on human customs _and_ plants, could reliably be relied upon to know it. _That_ made the appearance of mistletoe when they were together—and _only_ when they were together—rather suggestive.

Aziraphale leant back in his chair, juggling the concepts of Crowley, mistletoe, and kissing.

He tried to arrange the concepts of Crowley, mistletoe, and kissing into some semblance of order, to make them behave, but of course, because Crowley was involved, they absolutely would not. They jumped around like feral animals, each of them begging for attention and then not wanting it the second his thoughts alighted on them. He decided to take them one at a time and pulled out his notebook to wrangle them into.

So.

_Kissing._

Aziraphale wrote the word and stared at it. He underlined it and stared at it some more. He would classify himself as conceptually in favour of kissing, if a little light on practice lately. _Kissing: yes?_ he wrote, and allowed himself a moment to bask in his progress.

_Mistletoe._

He hummed at the blank space of the notebook. After a moment, Aziraphale decided he had no thoughts, specifically, about mistletoe. He hadn’t been much interested in plants in the garden and still wasn’t, beyond knowing which ones he liked on a pizza. A cursory glance in a reference book told him it would be unwise to put mistletoe on a pizza, even if one had an angel’s constitution, so he wrote that down: _no mistletoe on pizza._

_Crowley._

Aziraphale’s pen hovered on the full stop, doubling its size in comparison to the others. This was where things became trickier. He would admit that he had, quite without meaning to, become fond of Crowley. It was hard not to, when he was always showing up to help one out of scrapes, especially when one of said scrapes was apocalypse-sized. Aziraphale had been trying not to think about it. Had been trying not to think about Crowley, too, if he was honest, since they’d dined at the Ritz and Crowley had driven him home and looked at him the way that he had. Hope was an entirely new and confusing thing to see on a face when you knew it so well, when you’d argued with it, and spotted it in a crowd, and pretended not to be pleased to see it so many, many times.

Yes _fond_ was definitely the word. He wrote it beneath Crowley’s name.

_Fond._

Written down, it looked very small, but still, it made his heart pound to think directly at it rather than acting as if it wasn’t there. He stared at it again, for so long and so hard, in fact, that the word went blurry and looked more like _fiend_ , before resolving into _friend_. That was the problem with trying to puzzle out Crowley the same way he had mistletoe and kissing. There wasn’t one word, or even three, for him; he was a giant tangle of them. Like a resilient ball of green branches in the barren winter tree of Aziraphale’s brain, perhaps.

He traced Crowley’s name with his pen, then _kissing_ and _yes_ , until each was considerably denser and darker than it had been. They seemed to make sense together. He’d known for a while that they would, hadn’t he? But he had pushed the idea so far back in his mind, it was as if it were locked in the store cupboard, which made it easy to forget it was there sometimes, while other times, the lack of it seemed to be everywhere.

He thought of all the times Crowley had appeared, mistletoe swiftly following, all the times he’d looked at Aziraphale in question, and all the times he hadn’t received an answer, only to try again the next year, or decade, or century. Aziraphale wasn’t certain the internal organs housed within his corporeal form _could_ flip over, but they made a good show of trying to.

_Fond_ was, perhaps, not actually the word at all.

Aziraphale tipped forward, rested his forehead on the notebook, and allowed himself to think, very quietly, _oh bother_.

After a stiff cup of tea, and a sly brandy, Aziraphale rallied. He realised that what he needed was a plan. Nice and simple. Nothing fancy. Something to just get the job done, put things to rights. And he’d always been rather good with plans. The execution of them could be hit and miss, frankly, but the _planning_ , if it wasn’t boastful to say, he excelled at.

And thus he arrived at the following: he would invite Crowley over to decorate. This would allow Aziraphale to test the hypothesis that the mistletoe was not somehow naturally or spontaneously occurring, that Crowley was producing it in full knowledge of what it meant, and that what he meant by it was that he wanted to kiss Aziraphale underneath it. If he wanted it, and Aziraphale wanted it, then those two wants would surely naturally… coincide. Or collide. Or come together, in some sort of mouth-based way, as these things did.

He was sure they did.

Would.

There was no reason they wouldn’t, was there?

Aziraphale tugged down his waistcoat.

Nice. Simple. Easy, and just in time for Christmas.

He took a deep breath, and dialled Crowley’s number, pressing the cool melamine of the telephone to his ear and trying not to breathe in a way that might indicate nerves. All that did was make him too aware of the movement of air through his body until the whole business felt unspeakably complicated, but before he could hang up and start again, Crowley answered. “Yes?”

“It’s me.”

“Aziraphale! Wait, is everything alright?”

“Yes, perfectly fine. Tip top. I’m in fine fettle, no need to fret.” Aziraphale wound the cord of the phone around his finger. His chest was doing something strange, something warm and a little fluttery, at the sound of Crowley’s voice. “I just thought perhaps you might like to… pop over.”

“Pop over?”

“Yes. I believe it’s Saturnalia.”

“What? That’s not coming back, is it?” Crowley said. “This body’s only got the one liver. I mean I think it has. I haven’t actually looked.”

Aziraphale sighed into the handset. “Not for any kind of… bacchanalia. I thought we could…I don’t know. Do something. Make mince pies. Or… decorate.”

On the other end of the line, there was a long pause, in which Aziraphale realised he’d never actually called Crowley and asked him to come over for anything other than work before. They’d always just spilled over into being sociable, had let a working lunch dawdle on into the afternoon and then curl up on the sofa for the evening.

“Since when does the bookshop have a kitchen?”

Aziraphale closed his eyes. Of all the things to fixate on. “Alright,” he conceded, “we could _buy_ mince pies and you could heat them in the palm of your hand and _then_ we could decorate.”

“I told you before, I won’t be treated like some kind of microwave.”

“But it would be festive. Don’t you want to celebrate? Aren’t you bored of sitting in your draughty old flat all alone?”

On the other end of the line, Crowley sighed. “Fine. Give me half an hour.”

He was actually there in less than ten minutes, which Aziraphale knew was technically impossible, but Crowley never let that sort of thing bother him. “Stopped at Waitrose,” he said, holding out a carrier bag with a fir tree print on it.

Aziraphale peered inside to find a box of mince pies and a tub of brandy butter. “Where’s the rest of it?”

“What rest of it?”

“The—” Aziraphale stalled.

Crowley had always just shown up with it all, before. Where was it? Aziraphale couldn’t just come out and say it, _where’s the mistletoe? I have quite a specific plan of which it is a key—if not_ the _key—part._ He considered his options and finally he opted for, “—foliage. For decorating.”

Crowley looked at him for a long moment.

He frowned.

And then he took his sunglasses off and looked at Aziraphale again, from slightly less far away, before saying, “It’s… it’s in the car. I’ll—” He trailed off, backing away, face flitting between mild and moderate confusion. “—er—yeah, you—er—wait—just a—”

The door swung closed behind him.

Beyond it, Crowley walked a little way down the street, before turning abruptly on his heel to stride to where he’d actually left his car.

It wasn’t a look of mild to moderate confusion anymore. It was the pure, unadulterated, full blown thing.

Aziraphale stood in the middle of the shop floor, refusing to admit that this was not all going completely and utterly to plan. Plans could smell fear. That’s where most people went awry. Crowley was fetching the foliage, and the mistletoe, and everything would proceed according to plan from this point forth.

When Crowley returned, arms piled high with so many boxes he could barely see over the top of them, his face was almost—but not quite—back to normal. “Lots of foliage,” he said, and staggered towards the desk. “So much foliage there isn’t any left in the New Forest. Got it all here.”

Aziraphale took the topmost box from him, hurriedly setting it down and flipping the lid open to be confronted by a length of pine and cedar expertly woven together. It would look lovely in the window. Aziraphale huffed annoyance at it all the same, before setting about attaching it to the hooks which were now permanently fixed into the frame. It would be better if Crowley hung the mistletoe anyway, so Aziraphale could surprise him by this time reacting appropriately to it.

When he was done with the first garland, he busied himself with the next one and the next, working his way around the shop, sneaking glances every few minutes at Crowley to see the exact moment he hung the mistletoe. He pictured it—himself saying something like, ‘Oh, how lovely,’ and positioning himself beneath it with a knowing smile, Crowley scooping him up into a kiss.

Aziraphale cleared his throat. Really this itching feeling in his lungs was most uncomfortable and distracting. He shot another surreptitious glance at Crowley, who was winding a garland around one of the shop’s pillars like a snake, his black jumper clinging to his form in a most inviting way.

Really, was there any point in delaying any longer? They weren’t on different sides anymore. Aziraphale snuck over to the desk. He pressed his lips together and lifted the corner of one of the boxes which hadn’t been opened yet, hoping to glimpse white berries beneath, thinking to place it near the top so Crowley would attend to it next.

“Funny, isn’t it,” he said, frowning when the box contained only more pine, “how customs evolve over the years.”

“Do they?” Crowley said. He pottered over to the window, lighting candles with his fingertips and dotting them about, muttering under his breath to them for none of them to get any funny ideas about tipping over and setting fire to things.

That was new.

Aziraphale’s heart tugged on his ribs at the thought. Really, in his own ways, Crowley could be very thoughtful.

Aziraphale grabbed another box. “I was just thinking about the Vikings.”

“Why?”

“Oh, no reason,” Aziraphale said as he opened the box. It was the last one, so surely the mistletoe would be—

It contained a string of fairy lights, admittedly tangled up into an impenetrable mistletoe-like ball. “Oh blast.”

“Leave those,” Crowley said. “They need a little demonic persuasion to get themselves in order.”

“Righty-ho.”

Crowley took the box, glaring at the fairy lights. “Everyone else’s, I said,” he muttered, “not mine,” and set about draping them between the branches of the spruce which had appeared in the centre of the shop floor. “What were you saying about the Vikings?”

“What? Oh, nothing, really.”

While Crowley finished the tree, Aziraphale re-checked all the packages, sure he’d find the mistletoe in a bag somewhere, squirreled away in a corner or tucked, forgotten, into the bottom of a cardboard box. He checked them all three times, and was about to go for a fourth, when a thought occurred. Was there a shortage? Would be rotten luck if the one year in several centuries that he intended to act upon the appearance of mistletoe there wasn’t any, but stranger things had happened to him, and some of them quite recently. He hadn’t seen anything on the news or heard anyone talking about it, and they would, wouldn’t they? If there was one things humans liked at Christmas, it was the opportunity to moan about a minor disruption to a tradition they’d spent years swearing they didn’t care about.

“There we go,” Crowley said, and with a snap of his fingers, the lights on the tree illuminated, even though the plug was a good five feet from where any power outlets might reasonably be installed and the shop have never actually been hooked up to the electricity supply in the first place. Crowley poked a bauble, watching it swing back and forth, smiling slowly at it as it settled.

“What do you think?” Aziraphale said.

Crowley sniffed. “Looks alright to me.”

“I can’t help feeling there’s something missing.”

Crowley gave the shop a cursory once over. “Nah.”

Aziraphale wasn’t wrong about all this. He wasn’t. He had found _twenty-seven_ sources and there were at least _five instances_ of mistletoe-related Crowley that he could remember distinctly.

He wasn’t wrong.

Was he?

Aziraphale tugged at his bowtie. The thought filled him with cold, hard dread, deep enough and solid enough they could walk on it, like they had the Thames. “You don’t think perhaps you might’ve left something in the car?”

“I don’t think so?”

Feeling a little light-headed, Aziraphale edged towards the bookshop door. “Maybe I should go and check. Won’t be a jiffy. Back in a mo.”

Outside, the street was teeming with last minute shoppers. Aziraphale navigated around them with a series of increasingly terse apologies to where Crowley had pulled up to the kerb at quite an acute angle. He tried the driver’s side handle and miraculously it opened, so he climbed in, twisting around to inspect the back seat and the foot wells for stray foliage.

Nothing.

“If I was mistletoe, where would I—”

Aziraphale’s gaze fell on the glove box. Of course.

He leant across, squeezing around the various driving paraphernalia which surely could’ve been streamlined, and tried the handle. The glovebox fell open and a cascade of CDs tumbled out.

“Oh drat.” Aziraphale stretched over, patting around where his feet normal sat to retrieve them. Some of the driving paraphernalia dug into his ribs and he winced, but the CDs wouldn’t cooperate. One with a woman in a Santa outfit slipped from his fingers, making for under his seat, and remained resolutely just beyond his fingertips. “Oh come here, you dratted—”

_Rat-a-tat-tat._

Aziraphale started, turned his head to give whoever had just shaved a year off the life of his corporeal form a stern glance.

Crowley leant on the roof of the car, peering down at him through the gap where the driver’s door usually was. “Angel, if you wanted my Mariah Carey CD, you could’ve just asked. No need to try and steal it.”

Aziraphale swallowed, retracting himself, with some difficulty, from the glove box and the driving paraphernalia and backing out of the car. It was only once he was out that he realised he had effectively trapped himself between Crowley and the open door. He tugged his waistcoat back into place, pretending that Crowley hadn’t just caught him swearing at inanimate objects and that he wasn’t currently experiencing a localised heatwave due to mere proximity.

“Are you, by any chance—” Crowley said, and from the back pocket of his jeans, he produced a bunch of green foliage with white berries. “—looking for this?”

Aziraphale felt like all the air had gone out of the world.

It was one thing to realise his own thoughts were _Crowley kissing yes_ , it was another entirely to have Crowley know it, and from such a short distance away, and in such an inviting jumper, too.

“No,” Aziraphale said, even though his fingers were flexing at his sides to avoid just reaching out to touch him. “I don’t even know what that is.”

In six thousand years, he wasn’t sure he’d ever lied less convincingly, probably because in six thousand years, he’d never wanted to be believed less.

“And I mean even if I was,” he said, “it would only be because it’s… traditional.”

“Right,” Crowley said, and though he kept his face perfectly neutral, Aziraphale thought some of the twinkle in his eyes—which he hadn’t even really had time to appreciate before—went out. “I’ll just… hang this in the shop, then, shall I?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

Crowley looked at the cluster of berries in his hand, frame sagging just a little, and Aziraphale knew that he’d do it: he’d go into the shop and he’d hang it above the door, from the bell, and he’d pretend—for Aziraphale’s sake—that’s what he brought it for.

It was entirely the kind of thing which would make any reasonable person—or indeed celestial entity—think _Crowley kissing yes_ even if they hadn’t been previously doing so and then panicked.

“Unless—”

Crowley looked up.

Confusion.

Mild to moderate, just tinged with the same hope Aziraphale had seen after they dined together as who they really were for the very first time.

Very gently, Aziraphale prised the bunch of mistletoe from Crowley’s hand. He gazed down at it, wondering if he actually dared, if he was actually ready, and then dangled it over his own head.

Crowley looked at the mistletoe.

He looked at Aziraphale.

A moment, which felt like it had an eternity in it, passed, and then Crowley darted forward, hand sliding to the small of Aziraphale’s back to pull him in, his mouth landing on Aziraphale’s, warm and eager, and—if Aziraphale was honest—far too fleeting in its attention. He draped his arm around Crowley’s neck to hold him there a moment longer, quite glad Crowley was bearing him up because his knees appeared to have stopped working.

Crowley pulled back a little, looking rather startled, and cleared his throat. “Merry Christmas,” he said.

Crowley’s long fingers certainly felt very nice splayed, as they were, against Aziraphale’s back and from here, with the ghost of Crowley’s kiss still on his lips, he found Crowley’s gaze to be something to be cherished, rather than avoided.

“Golly,” Aziraphale said, not entirely meaning to. “I mean—you too. Merry—er—yes. Season's whatnot.”

He wondered what they were supposed to do now. He’d only planned as far as this.

Something drifted down and caught in Crowley’s fringe.

It was small, and white, and if Aziraphale wasn’t very much mistaken, completely unique, like the moment they found themselves in.

Aziraphale looked up to see fat, white snow clouds covering the sky as far as it was possible to see, and all around them, shopkeepers and harassed shoppers and children stopped and came out to see, too.

When he let his gaze fall back down, Crowley had several more snowflakes in his hair and on his shoulders, and was watching him closely.

“Time for those mince pies?” Aziraphale said.

“Of course.”

Crowley relaxed his hold on Aziraphale, turning as if to head back towards the bookshop, and Aziraphale thought _well that’s that, then_.

Crowley halted. “Before we do,” he said, “I think you should know—er—”

He faltered, wincing.

“Yes?” Aziraphale said, leaning forward just a little, the way he imagined a person might to indicate if someone were about to declare themselves, they would be receptive to it.

“It’s—er—” Crowley, very softly, rolled his eyes.

“What?”

“It’s just—well, it’s a bit smudged,” Crowley said, “and backwards, but you’ve got the words _kissing_ , _yes_ , and my name sort of—” Crowley waved a circle over his own forehead, before squinting at Aziraphale’s. “—and I can’t quite make it out but… maybe something about pizza?”

Aziraphale felt all the blood that had ever circulated through his system rush to his cheeks and then fall to his feet, taking his stomach with it. Crowley had known. The entire time they’d been decorating, it had been there: _Crowley kissing yes_. In fact, Aziraphale wouldn’t put it past him to have hidden the mistletoe precisely _because_ he knew, just to see what Aziraphale would do, to amuse himself with the knots he would tie himself into with the sheer agony of anticipation.

He really was a bastard.

The corner of Aziraphale’s mouth twitched and to stop a smile forming, he said, “I _absolutely_ have not.”

Crowley chuckled, tucking his chin into the neck of his jumper. “Ok,” he said, and with a tiny brush of his fingers, magic swept across Aziraphale’s forehead, like the downiest, most gentle of breezes. “You haven’t.”

He looked at Aziraphale through the falling snow, that way he always had, like he’d asked a question.

Only now, Aziraphale wanted to answer. He curled his fingers into Crowley’s jumper and tugged him forward, meeting his parted lips with his own, soft and coaxing at first before sinking properly into it, wrapping his arms around Crowley’s neck and letting Crowley pin him to the car door.

Crowley tasted and teased until Aziraphale felt as if there was no room in his chest for air anymore, only for this, for Crowley, for everything there had been and everything there still was to come. It was like discovering something that had been hidden through a long, dark winter and was being revealed by the thaw.

It was a long time before Crowley pulled away, this time, and when he did, it was only because someone wolf-whistled, before mysteriously skidding in a most ungainly way on a patch of ice.

They looked at each other, new understanding on the frosty air, the mistletoe still in Aziraphale’s hand, now resting on Crowley’s chest between them.

“Plant-based customs,” Crowley said, with a grin. “I told you they were the best ones.”


End file.
